J. Harrison Ghee’s efficiency in Broadway’s Some Like It Sizzling earned rave critiques — and a Tony Award win — after the characterization was partially knowledgeable by the actor’s actual life.
“It means all the pieces to have the ability to come right into a room and a artistic area and produce your self and your reality into the work and let that inform it,” Ghee, 34, solely advised Us Weekly on the American Theatre Wing’s fall gala on Monday, September 11. “To actually be efficient within the artistry and the ministry that I’m doing, it means all the pieces.”
Ghee — who’s nonbinary and makes use of he/she/they pronouns — stars as Jerry/Daphne in Some Like It Sizzling, which premiered in December 2022 based mostly on the 1959 movie of the identical identify. The manufacturing follows two Prohibition-era musicians, performed by Ghee and Christian Borle, after they’re compelled to flee city after they witness a mob hit. With gangsters scorching on their heels, they go undercover in drag. Ghee’s Jerry shortly finds the expertise to be transcendent.
“It was such a course of and collaborative in the way in which of all the time having conversations,” Ghee beforehand mentioned in an Instagram video shared by way of the Some Like It Sizzling account in Could. “There have been usually instances I might are available in the course of the workshop and in the course of the rehearsals for Broadway and issues I say in my on a regular basis life discovered their manner into the script.”
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The Broadway star additional characterised Jerry as a “grounded artist” with large desires, whose friendship with Borle’s Hoe relies “in love and in fact and in expertise.”
J. Harrison Ghee and Kenny Nunez attends The American Theatre Wing 2023 Gala Pleasure Malone/Getty Photographs
Ghee’s Some Like It Sizzling position earned them their first Tony Award nomination for Greatest Efficiency by an Actor in a Main Function in a Musical. The honour marked the primary time {that a} nonbinary actor had been nominated in that class. Ghee received the trophy in the course of the awards present in June.
“So many issues went by way of my head [when they called my name] however I used to be simply so joyful that I might share the second with my mother, who was my date,” Ghee advised Us on Monday. “[And] give her her flowers and present her how she’s made a distinction on this planet by way of her baby.”
Practically three months after the Tonys, Ghee nonetheless marvels on the coveted trophy every day. “It’s on a shelf above my TV,” the actor revealed on the Broadway profit. “Day-after-day [I look at it and], I’m like, ‘Ah, it’s proper there!’”
Along with being a Tony-nominated performer, Ghee can be making waves with their impeccable wardrobe alternatives.
“I’m going in my closet and I play,” they quipped to Us of constructing model choices. “I actually make time to play in my closet and simply say, ‘What’s the vibe as we speak? How do I really feel?’ and are available into no matter it’s for the day and simply let it discover itself.”
